Legacy
by FamRoyalty
Summary: Through untenable events, alone a Forerunner lives through the stasis, underground and forgotten. Only to be awoken by gunfire and hurdler into a genocidal war.
1. Legacy

Fire, cracks through the metal, creaking and groaning under pressure.

No, it has been guarding this place since his creation, he would not let it be destroyed.

He is here to protect. To guard against- / **ERROR/**

 **MALFUNCTION. CORRECT.**

Rampage. This is not good. He hovered over the case, cold and unmoving. A sphere, warm to the touch, yet so dead. He would be lying if he wasn't fascinated by what lay underneath.

He didn't have the data, but his creator was very adamant about him protecting whatever lay there at all cost.

No one would come close, she said. No Reclaimer, no warrior.

He was updated regularly after her death, all the knowledge is important. But after the firing of the Halo, the information has stopped.

He had tried to get into contact with others, but there was simply nothing but silence.

That is until today.

A holy fire scorched the earth above, the vibrations reflecting on the ceiling. Two factions were fighting outside, most likely unaware of what lay beneath their own feet. So, he did what he did best. He waited.

Waited and listened. Watched.

But even as the molten rocks and fire cooled, it didn't take much for them to understand what they were standing on.

Well, at least he hoped, the chances of them actually knowing whereof the estimate, %1.838291000 **/ERROR/**

 **UPHOLDERS OF THE MANTEL. KILL THOSE WHO DA** \- Oh, lack of discipline and the memory gap is not the best good thing.

So, when the men came, holding guns and armor, He was honestly surprised.

"Oh! Humans! What a surprise! Here I thought you'll never touch the stars again!" The humans, most likely soldiers, so _surprised_ that he almost laughed at them. He hadn't laughed at anything since

 **/ERROR/ /MEMORY GAP DETECTED/**

They asked and asked, what is this place? A research facility. Who are you? Guardian of this place. "What is that?" A soldier, strayed from the safety of their numbers to step closer to what was in front of them.

He flashed red, **/ERROR/**

 **MUST PROTECT. MUST PROTECT.**

"Reclaimer. DO NOT TOUCH. THIS IS **/ERROR/** I AM **/ERROR/** AND YOU WILL NOT HARM THEM!" He already activated the systems defend protocols, weapons ready to kill at the word.

They immediately backed off, raising they own weapons. Foolish. Weak.

But they were aiming at him, and not what he was made to protect.

The guns killed them without hesitation. No harm came to **/ERROR/**.

It took weeks, even though they tried to be sneaky, he heard the plans to try to "infiltrate the facility and capture him" plan. It was dumb.

Ignorant, dull, vacuous, bovine.

Speech patterns were changing. Oh, this is not good.

Soon, humans were crawling within the facility, destroying the guns and defensive mechanisms.

He hated it.

So when the last line fell, he was not going to let it fall into enemy hands. To protect it from all odds.

"Okay, light-bulb don't try anything. We all know how backstabbing your kind can be," Oh, they encountered another of his kind? Oh, interstring, he doesn't have any data-

"If you would have never stepped into this facility, you'll never be _shot_ at. You don't belong here. You don't have the clearance, only Forerunners do, _Reclaimer_." A mockery of their title, obvious and childish.

The humans shifted uncertainly of themselves. Never have they encounter anything like this.

"Hey, we're reclaimers right? Why- "

" _THERE IS NOTHING TO CLAIM HERE. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT. LEAVE."_

 **ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.**

He would fight if he had to.

And he did.

Because the only function left in his system would be to protect. The only thing he's built for. He doesn't remember what or who built him, but the one core purpose still stood as tall and as regional as the Forerunners themselves.

The Humans fought fiercely and furtively. Reminding him of a war that later millennia.

Even with his damaged body and mind, he would stand as last defense to his **ERROR.**

 **REBOOTING.. PROCESSING.. COMPLETE.**

Forerunner. Data was somewhat restored, he knew now why he is fighting.

Because this is to last Forerunner.

And he'll be damn if anyone touched him.

* * *

A/N: I liked this. Honestly. Well thanks for reading, do you want me to expand this?


	2. Fear the Unknown

_**Notes:** This story is really not much, I just wanted to test it out before putting this on the marker. Anyway, I do hope you enjoy this._

 _ **Disclaimer** : I do not own shit, I really don't know why I even bother to write this nowadays._

 _Legacy:_

 _noun_

1\. something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past.

* * *

 **Legacy**

" _After exhausting every other strategic option, my creators activated the rings. They and all additional sentient life within three radii of the galactic center, died, as planned._ "— 343 Guilty Spark.

 _ **After the Halo Event**_

Their world burned.

Cleansed and buried, the mighty structures stay loyal as they stood proudly. But there is no one left alive to admire the work. Those except who caused all of this. Some Forerunner ships were left drifting, the hulks of metal floating without care.

Those few souls that had survived, would not last long. Our cities and planets forever burned through the cleansing fire of the Humans might.

Retinence-Bears-Prominence didn't think much of the Humans after the war, their species already weak-minded and horrors brought into the galaxy. But as upholders of the Mantel, he too had doubts. The Flood had spread far too quickly for anyone to do anything. Yet he couldn't find a real answer to why, and how, they were here.

Was it the human's fault? For bringing the Parasite to their shores? Or was it their own doing?

Yet here he was, in a devoid rock located at the perfect distance from its young, searing yellow sun. The interior of the base was mostly grey, the floor covered in the geometric designs that were found on Forerunner constructs. Or what remained.

He, as well as Infinity-Brings-Twisted-Fate, and Tempest-of-Intricate-Design were few that witness the firing of the Halos. A might power, a last testament of the once-mighty Forerunners. Their worlds were now cleansed from the Parasite, their trillions of worlds, just lost. It was quite depressing. The mighty Forerunners now dead, to all context.

He wondered if anyone would remember them. But of course the few days were getting to him, he spent time thinking, not building nor thinking of a design to impress the council. What was there to build? He couldn't do anything else, the worlds they spent centuries on where dead husks. Left forgotten, they already caused far too much damage.

It was best forgotten.

But Infinity-Brings-Twisted-Fate thought of something different. As other Forerunners disbanded into the stars, to die with some dignity, others settled on lesser worlds, the trio remained. Manipulators, living close together, they always managed to find a way to each other. Infinity-Brings-Twisted-Fate though was an Engineer. He wasn't sure where he stood in guilds or clans, but like Tempest, he too was once part of Faber's guild.

But that was the past, now he and Tempest-of-Intricate-Design are in Infinity's building room. There, not many seen what _exactly_ he was doing there for the past weeks, the only reason they didn't go into Exile with the rest of their race.

"Is there a particular reason why we're," he kicked the bolt of metal away from his path, "In the most unorganized place of this rock?" Tempest shared his ideation.

"I may have found a solution to our problems," The floating spheres were pulsing unevenly, as he and Tempest shared an uneasy look.

But when he saw the swirling a large grey sphere suspended above, he still felt some degree of surprise. How long had he been working on this?

"What problems? We all agreed to never meddle in other's problems." Tempest, the only warrior-servant that hadn't gone with the Iso-Didact to fix the Domain, stepped forward.

"What if, I had discovered a way to sleep forever?" Reticence snored, yes he did want to sleep his problems away. Still, he felt unnerved by it.

"You have seen my designs, you said it could work. A way to sleep, never age, and one could become fully healthy. Not with the effects like pods." A callback when he reviewed a future project that would never see the light.

Yes, it all sounded like a far fetch dream.

"Why? What is there to gain?" Infinity frowned, Tempest, like himself, had a few rough last days with his people. When others went into exile, they remained together on this little research on a deserted little pathetic moon. Their guild, or what remained of it, obviously didn't approve.

He wondered where they all went.

"Why not?" Smiling is beneath one, yet his eye twitches in the effort. He's right, _what_ is there to gain from the concept of an idea, and yet one had to ask, what is there to lose?

"Very well, I'll give it a try." Infinity gained his confidence as he led him to the first hovering sphere. It wasn't impressive at first, he has seen better and made better. Yet, it was a design so alien, it made him feel different.

"What do I do?" Awkwardly he stood as the door opened, Tempest remained silent.

"Nothing, if we do this, then when we would wake up in a whole different time-period. Consider it a normal study. " _Yes, as normal as the Forerunners gone._

Infinity was always the strange one of the group, something that wasn't frowned upon, merely wary of. So when he stepped forward, it came to a shock when Infinity wrapped his arms around him.

Physical contact.

Awkwardly, he hesitated only a moment before wrapping his arms around him, returning his hug with an uncontrolled and unexpected fierceness. Uncommon by his people.

He now stood coldly in the empty whiteness of the sphere, even Tempest leaned forward, to act as interest interested as Infinity. His armor, the one he held in the highest regard, now felt claustrophobic, a trap. It reminded him of a cryptum, actually.

As Infinity tapped the holographic display in a nearby terminal, he couldn't help but feel abnormal, if something was beginning to unfold.

The prototype states began, the warm sensation grew as the door closed. Leaving him in darkness.

His last thoughts, scattered and mangled, the door closed with a hiss, He wondered if Infinity knew what he was doing, praying he wasn't going to die a lab rat.

* * *

"What have you done?" Tempest, knew of the dangers the machine could do, yet he stayed quiet in the shadows, as Reticence stood in the pod and slept. If this could actually work, why would one stay there? What future held for them, if they woke up?

A Better Future?

"This could immortalize us, let us sleep until we're needed. Why die now? Why not in fifty years? Hundred?" _Why live at all?_ But Tempest kept those thoughts to himself. Immortality is something, somewhere, a Forerunner always thought about once in their lifetime.

He was denied a warrior's death.

The idea of "Immortality" had always been just that – an idea. A concept that held no more significance to him than quantum mechanics. Both things had importance and affected people – though some more than others – but were never really anything more than a theory, a concept pondered over.

Yet, Infinity claimed that he found a way to get just a concept into the realms of reality. Nonsense. Yet his eyes don't lie, as the steady beeping of Reticence of his heart was heard.

"My Family had been working on it for millennia, always working on it." And now the idea came to _life_. And Tempest didn't know how to feel about it. Waking up in a different world, with little to no idea what it would bring.

Yet, Reticence took such leap of faith.

"Very well, who will wake us?"

"I will of course!" The happy-childish voice replied, as Tempest almost shot the thing who would dare to startle him. _A monitor, great._

He didn't fool himself into believing that when they woke up, a new, better Future waited for them.

He threw an uneasy look at Infinity, taking the message, Infinity stepped forward. "Monitor Glendora-09, you'll be our protector, you'll guard this place until you're very last thought. You'll wake us if only the direst situation. Understood?" The Monitor kept promising and chattering, filling Tempest head with useless talk.

His ancilla, already in some form of quiet sleep, too seemed annoyed by the Monitor.

"What of our ancilla? The Domain? We can't just leave them," Infinity, shook his head if merely talking to an uneducated child, just to some context he was.

He was not there when the first exchanged fire began against the Parasite. He was a young manipulator who only heard rumors at the time.

"Your ancilla, as well as Reticence will be alright. No matter what happens out there, we'll be safe. When we wake, it will be like no time as past," Reassurance wasn't what Tempest was looking for, yet he felt oddly okay with this. He is a warrior-servant, meant to protect the Forerunners and their worlds.

There is nothing left to protect.

"Very well, I'll place my life in your hands then," As he stepped forward, he couldn't help but feel uneasy. His ancilla whole-heartily agreed with him.

As the door closed, the warm sensation grew like a warm plant, nothing in or through, he closed his eyes, letting his body rest for the first time in years.

#

Infinity-Brings-Twisted-Fate stood silently taking the view of the spheres floating gently from the ground. The world silent and it simply grew in white noise. This was it. There was nothing else he could do, the worlds he and others constructed. Build and design were lost to history and time.

Forgotten.

But not if he could help it, even if he died, there was still hope that someone out there, in years to come would grow curious and maybe, _maybe_ find them. But it was beneath him to hope for a better world. After all, Forerunners were the ones that brought this upon the Galaxy. Maybe ha _manunes_ would be back into the stars.

Infinity snored, with such aggressive gene manipulation the Life workers have done, it would take thousands of generations for them to take their former glory. They would not be alive by then.

The monitor stood obediently at his side, satisfied by simply floating there. What an odd little thing.

"Very well then, Monitor Glendora-09, you'll only leave this place if the situation calls for it. Wake us when the time as run out.'' With that, the Forerunner stepped into the stepping stone of his last steps.

He was supposed to be afraid, their world would be gone in a blink and no one would know. He snored, the icy feeling running through his blood vessels as he closed his eyes, the world around him warped and changed the colors turning into a blob of a dull color, and in the end, he regretted nothing.

As his conscious left him, the world he knew slipped through the fingers of time as he slept, the Monitor happily watched, monitoring with a playful tune for the next thousand years.

The world outside the timeless place, untouched by the events that changed and forged the stars around them. But it wasn't much left as the War turned their eyes towards the dormant gods under the stars.


	3. This isn't so fun anymore

**Notes** : I haven't updated this in some time because in all honestly, Im only writing this for myself and no one else. But that doesn't mean I haven't left this story behind.

See you next time.

* * *

Chapter 3:

 **BOOM!**

The shards of the rocks and hot metal tearing someone's skin isn't the prettiest thing someone could experience.

Lt. Marilyn Shea hated hope. It was a nasty drug that would drag your corpse around to the edge of the world only to leave you empty and dead.

They say when standing on the brink of death your life flashes before your eyes—your hopes, your regrets, your "should-a, would-a, could-a," wishes and wants. They say these things all play out like some well-worn airstrip, well she's calling bullshit.

When the frag entered her now-fucked life, she didn't see angels or some mythical voice. She saw nothing but red pain.

So she is in this forsaken, good-for-nothing rock for some damn signal that couldn't even exist.

She wonders if her team is still alive and kicking ass. She hates to hope, but like the nasty drug, she can't resist hoping that they're okay. Even though she knows it will come back and bite her in the ass.

The purple flash in the sky brought her from her fast turning thoughts.

Damn Covenant.

Wasn't there suppose to be _peace_? The stupid goddamn alliance between their genocidal murders and the damn cockroaches of the universe?

She loved war, like any other soldier. The cutting-edge, between life and death. She wasn't some addict, because she fucking hates war as much as she loves it.

So how the fuck is she dying on this stupid dead rock instead of being on a beach somewhere?

Fuck the goddamn UNSC and the damn Galaxy.

So she takes a breath and drags her battered body to the closets corpse her sight can see. Which isn't far.

But in fact, it turns out to be the damn rookie. The damn fucking rookie that is fresh of the Academy and was too fucking young to join the war. And now he's corpse is in some dead rock.

She hated.

She fucking hated everything right now as she wished the frag would've taken her instead of the kid. The fact still remained that her life never flashed before her eyes. Or whatever sappy movies say. No, there was never a last-minute regret, any things she wished she could have done better.

Stupid Forerunner structure that got her team killed.

Stupid damn movies for still fighting. She's supposed to be home.

No matter, if there was nothing left, her home, was glassed and left for dead long after she joined the fight.

Stupid Covenant.

She still drags herself though. Even though she cussing more than a priest would feel comfortable hearing. While singing her colorful language, she never hears the thumps of the heavy hooves hitting the ground.

But even though the blood leaving her is making her drowsy, she still has enough for her brain and a gun in her hand.

 _She fucking hates Hope_.

Because if it wasn't because of Hope, she would have played dead or shot herself. Instead, the happy drug forces her to raise her gun and praying to whatever God out there, that her death buys her team a few precious seconds.

The sword burns through her skin, cracking it and melting her very bones. Her blood boiling and causing her vessels to pop like a cherry.

She never screams, but the shot rang out and she smirks an evil laugh as the pain took her to sleep.

* * *

Through the darkness of the void in space, the sphere resting for thousand of years undisturbed, under the rock and molten moved.

The battle happening above ground is blood and cold, and not many would make it. Captain Maria knew this, she had long prepared herself from the clutches of her training, not all would make it, not even herself. The near genocidal acts of the Covenant made sure that Humanity would remember what truly matters when they were a corner, survival at the fittest.

So she stood there, like a prisoner waiting for the judge, as the fire consumed yet another pelican, hot metal screaming and exploding it fell under the pressure of the heat. Static cut through, before there were screaming and howling of men as they realized that they wouldn't be leaving the field, now only echoed their last cries. The UNSC would remember these brave soldiers in paper status.

It was, after all, the UNSC that send the nearest ship to this unknown signal in the edge of known space, where not even the Covenant would come near. There wasn't some suspicious active here, now it was literally nothinghere. Not even some dead ship in space, no scraps, no beautiful flourish planet, no just a small star and a dead planet orbiting around it.

"Ma'am reporting for duty," A real Spartan of the legends, she remembers them as she heard as a private. The unstoppable machines of Humanity that would keep them alive just for another day. She now wonders what happened to them during to this whole ordeal of the war.

"Spartan, I realize that you were just walked into this ship for safe transport to the UNSC, but I'm afraid I have to ask for you to fight again." She wondered what untold horror was behind that helmet, waiting to be unleashed under the Covenant.

And as she send the soldier to war once again, she felt a small shiver of fear over the legends that held true and a small pity for the Covenant forces that would cross their path.

* * *

The once proud shipmaster stood in the shaken bridge of the old ship. His crew and himself knew how this vermin filth wasn't walking away this time. He spends too much fighting that this is all he knew by this point. Unlike most of the disgraced brothers, he had a sense of honor, and would not lower himself or his brothers to lower themselves as hire-arms, mercenaries with no honor.

He only had this one "job" and he and his brothers would be free to leave this disregarded system. Even if someone could call it that. The Holy gods clearly didn't have time for this as the only sign of life was the small star and the cold pathetic rock orbiting it. Humans were clearly made for this place.

And underneath the dead rock of ice and blood that now ran its once full rivers, the men and women of the UNSC prepare to open an old tomb that would be a gamble of death or fortune for the Galaxy.


End file.
